UNITED STATES
School CP - February 2011

khou.com (KHOU-TV), Houston, Texas, 1 February 2011

HOUSTON -- When 11-year-old Keyone Lockett came home from
school on Friday, he had trouble sitting down. The fifth-grader
at Hilliard Elementary said he was paddled by his assistant
principal six times.

"The first one I had, he said, I had moved a little and
he said that was extra," said Lockett. "I had moved
three times and I got three extra. Then on my last one, he had
popped me, and he said it wasn't hard enough, so he popped me
again."

Lockett said it all began when a teacher brought him and a
classmate down the assistant principal's office after a
disturbance during a test.

"The other boy, in the back of my seat, he was messing
with me," said Lockett.

Lockett said the paddling left its mark in more than one way.

"I couldn't sit down the whole weekend, I had nightmares
and stuff," he said.

His mother took him to the emergency room to have doctors look
at the dark purple bruise that covered his backside. She was told
to keep Lockett out of school for a few days and give him Motrin.

Lockett has ADHD, and his mom admits sometimes acts up.

"He's got pops before, but it never went to that
extent," said Lakishia Smith, Lockett's mother.

In Texas, it's up to each district to decide whether or not it
will allow corporal punishment.

North Forest ISD's school discipline policy allows it,
stating:

"Corporal punishment may be used as a discipline
management technique in accordance with the Student Code of
Conduct. Corporal punishment shall be limited to spanking or
paddling the student and shall be administered only in accordance
with the following guidelines:

1. The student shall be told the reason corporal punishment is
being administered.

2. Corporal punishment shall be administered only by the
principal or designee.

3. The instrument to be used in administering corporal
punishment shall be approved by the principal.

4. Corporal punishment shall be administered in the presence
of one other District professional employee and in a designated
place out of view of other students."

The policy also states that each parent has to give permission
as to whether their child can be paddled or not. Smith gave her
approval, but now she regrets it.

"When I saw the bruise, I said that is too much,"
said Smith. She said the guidelines were violated, because there
was not another employee in the room when her son was paddled.
She has asked North Forest ISD police to look into the situation.
And, she said while the assistant principal has apologized, it's
not enough.

In a statement released Tuesday afternoon, the school district
said that while allowed, corporal punishment is to be used only
as a disciplinary tool of last resort.

"When administered, corporal punishment is enacted to
discourage misconduct. However, it is not administered casually,
taken lightly, or designed or administered to cause intentional
injury to a student.

A recent incident involving the administration of corporal
punishment to a student at one of the district's campuses has
been reported. This reported incident is both unfortunate and
unintentional," the statement read.

The district also noted that, as required by the corporal
punishment policy, they had parental consent from Smith on file.
They said the incident is being reviewed by district officials,
who will determine if any further action is required.

"He doesn't need to be in the school, if [the assistant
principal is] doing that to the kids," said Smith.

Smith isn't waiting to see if the educator involved is
disciplined. She said what happened to her son is enough. She's
transferring Lockett to another school by the end of the week,
and she won't be signing any agreement to have her son paddled
again.

Two-minute news segment from local TV station KHOU (1 Feb 2011) of which the above report is an abbreviated version. The boy and his mother are interviewed and there are stills of his bottom after the paddling.

HERE IS THE CLIP:

IMPORTANT: Copyright in this video material rests with the original copyright holders. This brief excerpt is reproduced under the "fair use" doctrine for private, non-profit, historical research and education purposes only. It must not be redistributed or republished in any commercial context.

Greensboro News & Record, North Carolina, 8 February 2011

Corporal punishment ban approved in Rockingham County

The Rockingham County Board of Education has approved doing
away with corporal punishment for students.

Rockingham joins 69 other districts in the state, including
Guilford County Schools, in doing so.

The 6-5 vote came after a brief discussion among board
members, which included recollections of having the punishment
doled out by teachers and principals.

"If it wasn't for corporal punishment, I wouldn't be
here," said board member Hal Griffin. "I learned how to
beg in a principal's office. But we live in a much more
complicated time."

The decision comes after legislators changed laws governing
corporal punishment last year. State law prohibits the use of
corporal punishment on students with disabilities.

Jill Wilson, the school board's attorney, has noted about a
third of students in the district are covered under that
designation.

Board member Ron Price was the most vocal advocate for keeping
some sort of corporal punishment policy.

Price proposed a policy that would require a parent come to
the school and spank the child or be present when a principal
spanked their child.

"It removes the liability because the parent will be
there," he said.

District officials said that while records of corporal
punishment aren't kept, it's believed it hasn't been administered
in a county school in more than two years.

The board also heard from members of the county educators'
association. The group did an informal survey of its 600 members,
receiving feedback from 145 teachers. Of that number, 103 were in
favor of eliminating corporal punishment.

Debra Wilson, an association member and a Western Rockingham
Middle teacher, read the board results from various studies
linking corporal punishment to lower IQ scores, slower mental
development and increased negative outcomes, such as depression.

Sparing the Rod: Spanking in Schools

By Lauren Lee

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Most of Europe and 30 of the 50 states in
America don't allow spanking in school. Corporal punishment is
allowed in Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee but in Shelby
County, spanking is allowed in some schools but not in others.

The image of the catholic school nun wielding a ruler is one
often associated with corporal punishment in school but there is
a long history with physical discipline in public schools in
Shelby County.

In fact, it's practiced now in the Shelby County school
district. It's banned in Memphis City Schools, but that could
change, very soon.

The beginning of corporal punishment in school is directly
related to the influence of corporal punishment endorsed by the
church. Even with the modern separation of church and state, the
influence remains today.

"A person in authority, who loves his or her children,
corrects them through discipline. Sometimes that discipline is
physical, that's my belief system", said Pastor
Kenneth Whalum Jr.

Whalum is a Baptist pastor. He is also a member of the Memphis
City School Board of Education. MCS does not allow corporal
punishment in schools, but Whalum wants to see it brought back.

"There was a time when people used to talk about,
teachers loved their students, and principals loved their kids.
Well, if you love them you have to correct them."

Whalum could soon get his wish to return paddling to Memphis
City School children, although he is against a consolidated
school system. The March 8th referendum could result in Shelby
County Schools absorbing Memphis City Schools which would mean an
immediate adoption of county policies, including corporal
punishment.

"Parents want strong discipline, most parents want strong
discipline in the classroom. They want their child to be
disciplined," said Mike Wissman. Shelby County Schools board
member Mike Wissman says paddling is only used when other
discipline methods haven't worked, and parents can opt out of the
program but he worries about the policy extending to 105,000
Memphis students.

"I don't think it will be welcome by many of the Memphis
parents just because there has not been the policy in place in
Memphis City Schools," said Wissman.

But Memphis City School Board Member Martavius Jones, who is
for consolidation, and against corporal punishment in school,
says post merger policies are up for debate.

"That new unified board would have to make the decision
and I would hope that unified board would make a data driven
decision," said Jones. Jones said data showed that same
children were being paddled repeatedly and with no improvement.
He says that's why the district abandoned the policy more than
four years ago. He also worries there's a fine line between
discipline and abuse when you're talking about a school official
paddling a child.

"There's always the potential for that to happen and I'm
sure that is a concern of every school official," said
Jones.

"With all the technology we have man, you not going to be
able to abuse a kid in the school, man. Cell phones with a
camera, cameras in the ceiling, cameras in the air conditioning
vent, please," said Whalum.

Wissman says paddling is abuse when it's done out of anger
rather than for discipline and, he says the policy isn't going
anywhere. Shelby County Schools says only about one third of
schools use corporal punishment, and only a small number of kids
are paddled every year.

"Sometimes the thought of paddling will deter people from
doing bad behavior," said Wissman.

Whalum agrees on the premise but disagrees that Memphis
parents wouldn't welcome the policy.

"They would sign a form that says I don't want my kid
spanked. Ok. But about 80 percent of those reasonable parents
would say, where do I sign cause I can't do anything with him at
home, help me," said Whalum.

TV news version (3 minutes 30 seconds) of the above report, from Fox TV in Memphis, 9 February 2011. Rev. Kenneth Whalum and other officials discuss the prospect of CP returning to Memphis as a result of a possible merger with Shelby County school district, where the paddle never went away. (The soundtrack has disappeared from the last few seconds of the film.)

HERE IS THE CLIP:

IMPORTANT: Copyright in this video material rests with the original copyright holders. This brief excerpt is reproduced under the "fair use" doctrine for private, non-profit, historical research and education purposes only. It must not be redistributed or republished in any commercial context.

Charleston Daily Mail, West Virginia, 10 February 2011

Putnam delegate wants paddling back in schools

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A Putnam County delegate wants lawmakers
to reconsider the state's ban on paddling in schools.

Known as corporal punishment, the state outlawed the practice
of physically reprimanding students in 1994, but Delegate Brian
Savilla, R-Putnam, would like to see that ban repealed.

Savilla on Wednesday introduced House Bill 3081, which would
allow for reasonable corporal punishment in schools.

The bill calls for the teacher administering the punishment to
be of the same gender as the student being punished. The
punishment would have to be supervised by a teacher or
administrator of the opposite gender.

West Virginia banned paddling after many states across the
country had done so through the 1980s and 1990s.

Savilla, 28, said that has led to a generation gap between
students who attended school when paddles were used and those who
came later.

"I firmly believe it's led to a lack of respect," he
said. "My generation was the first to see these mass
killings in school - you saw Columbine and the like.

"Back when we had paddling, you did have instances, but
they were on a smaller scale. When there was paddling, there was
more discipline in school, and the system itself was more
structured."

As a substitute teacher for the past several years, Savilla
said he has talked to his colleagues about student behavior and
the overwhelming majority believes they lost control of their
classrooms when paddling was banned.

The current methods of detention, suspension and expulsion
have been shown to be ineffective, he said.

"All the ways of discipline now, it's actually worse for
the student than paddling because their answer is either a
time-out situation or taking them completely out of school,"
Savilla said.

"They talk about self-esteem, they talk about how they
want every kid to learn, but yet their answer is to take the kid
out of the classroom. And that is harming their future instead of
just letting the teacher paddle them and sit them back down and
teach them."

He said allowing teachers to discipline kids in the classroom
would give them more time to focus on instruction - time now
spent filling out detention and suspension paperwork.

"I think when you're allowed to discipline the kids who
get out of line, then that affects everything," he said.
"That gives the teacher more time to worry about the class
instead of discipline.

"Nowadays, there's no consequences to bad behavior, so if
a kid sees another kid act up, they act. But if they see that kid
get disciplined, they know they'll get disciplined."

Dale Lee, president of the West Virginia Education
Association, acknowledges a growing discipline problem in schools
but doesn't think a return to corporal punishment is the answer.

"Personally, I applaud the delegate's effort to put some
accountability back on students and recognizing that in many
areas there is a discipline problem," Lee said.

"While this may be a popular concept for some, there are
others that may be very tentative to do something like this in
this day and age of lawsuits."

Before the ban, the state Department of Education studied the
number of paddlings across the state.

In the 1990-91 school year, corporal punishment was used in
1,816 incidents.

Marion County was responsible for 816, followed by Lincoln
County with 289, Wayne County with 133 and Logan County with 91.

Some opponents have argued there's nothing to stop a teacher
who had a bad night arguing with a spouse from taking that out on
a student the next day.

Instead of corporal punishment, the WVEA is advocating for
greater use of alternative education environments - as far down
as the grade-school level.

Lee said that keeps a child in school without disrupting the
regular classroom.

"I think we need to recognize that there are alternative
means of discipline and recognize that in many cases students
have to have a different form of punishment," Lee said.

Both Lee and Savilla said discipline problems aren't confined
to schools.

"It's an implication on society as a whole," Lee
said. "The lack of respect is not just in the classroom
anymore, it's in society, and we really need to figure out how to
fix the family units and social accountability.

"I think we need answers, and I think we need student
accountability, and we need to bring respect back into not only
our schools but our society as a whole."

Savilla attributed the loss of respect to more than the ban on
paddling.

"The direct correlation of first, taking out the Bible;
second, taking out prayer in school; then finally taking out
discipline - each time each of those three was taken out, there
was a massive decline in school safety," he said.
"Everything gradually got worse."

He said restoring discipline in schools might be a way to help
restore the social fabric.

"That kid who is the problem is not receiving the
discipline at home. It gives them at least some place where
someone will care about them and discipline them because
discipline is caring," he said. "As the older
generation would say, it's tough love."

The bill has been referred to both the House Education and
Judiciary Committees, but the chances of it coming up for
discussion are slim to none.

"I personally do not support (corporal punishment), and
don't think there'd be much support among the legislators,"
said House Education Chairman Mary Poling, D-Barbour.

Savilla said he would at least like to see the issue of
discipline and respect in society come up for debate.

"It's almost like one of those hush issues that people
see it's a problem in the background but they're afraid to bring
it to light because of the different stances to how to
discipline," he said.

"Just taking the time to acknowledge that there's a problem would help the problem because you'd have to address it then."

Statesville Record & Landmark, North Carolina, 15 February 2011

I-SS axes corporal punishment policy

By Chyna Broadnax

Click to enlarge

The Iredell-Statesville Schools Board of Education decided to
wipe the district's corporal punishment policy from the books
during its monthly meeting Monday.

The board moved to strike down the policy in response to the
North Carolina General Assembly's recent ruling that districts
with corporal punishment guidelines on their books can use them
on students with disabilities if parents grant permission. That
ruling would have forced I-SS to distribute some 2,500 letters to
parents informing them of the policy and offering them an
opportunity to either waive or accept it to be used on their
children.

I-SS already had a directive in place against the use of
corporal punishment.

Quickly after Deputy Superintendent of Operations Ron Hargrave
introduced the agenda item during the meeting, board member Anna
Bonham made her vote clear.

"I would like to make a motion to strike this
policy," she said.

Board member Bryan Shoemaker suggested that instead of getting
rid of the policy entirely, the board make four revisions and an
amendment to it that would not permit corporal punishment on
students with disabilities, but would still allow the policy to
exist.

In a prepared statement Shoemaker said the use of corporal
punishment shows that "in life there are consequences."

In the end, however, the board voted 5-2 in favor of getting
rid of the policy, with John B. Rogers Jr. joining Shoemaker in
opposition.

Superintendent Brady Johnson said the days of corporal
punishment in public schools are over.

"We are in a very different community with a different
set of standards," he said.

Johnson said he has not been able to find research that
supports the idea that corporal punishment deters negative
behavior in schools.

"This is a tool the vast majority of principals do not
feel comfortable using," Johnson said in referring to an
I-SS survey in which all but two principals said they wouldn't
consider using corporal punishment in their schools.

kristv.com (KRIS-TV), Corpus Christi, Texas, 16 February 2011

School Spankings Under Attack: Should They Continue?

By Steven Romo

CORPUS CHRISTI - There's a new push in Texas to eliminate
spankings from schools. A bill has been filed to stop the
practice, but several districts in our area still allow corporal
punishment on campus.

Corporal Punishment, spankings, or paddling... No matter what
you call it, physical punishments in schools stir some strong
opinions from parents and educators. We found out it's alive and
well in many local school districts.

"At the beginning of every school year, we send out a waiver
to parents and they can sign off. If they don't want their kids
to be spanked, we do not spank them," said Patrick Romero,
Asst. Superintendent of the Calallen Independent School District.

In the Calallen school district, parents have to sign consent
forms before a spanking is given on campus. Administrators say,
the use of those spankings has drastically declined over the
years.

"There's been a decline over the years. I think the main
reason parents ask schools to spank their kids is because it's
typically in lieu of other forms of punishment," Romero
said.

The Tuloso-Midway district also allows spankings on its
campuses. Interim Superintendent Dr. Suzanne Nelson says, as in
the Calallen district, parents often choose to have their kids
spanked rather than more time-consuming punishments.

"More often, they request that we use that option. I've
even had a parent offer to come in to give the licks
himself," said Nelson.

While these districts still have the option to spank
misbehaving students, they rarely put the paddle into use. And
when it is used, they say it's normally at a parent's request.

But, as Nelson says, even if it isn't used regularly,
sometimes the threat of a paddling is enough.

"And, it may be preventing some bad behavior from
students who may fear getting paddled," Nelson said.

Corpus Christi I.S.D. does not allow on campus spankings.

To find out more about the policy at area districts, contact
the administration offices for a copy of the corporal punishment
policies.

All content (C) 2002 - 2011 KRIS
and Synapse. All Rights Reserved.

RELATED VIDEO CLIP

Two-minute news report from KRIS-TV, Corpus Christi, 16 Feb 2011, of which the above report is a text version. Short interviews with the superintendents of two Texas school districts where paddling is used.

HERE IS THE CLIP:

IMPORTANT: Copyright in this video material rests with the original copyright holders. This brief excerpt is reproduced under the "fair use" doctrine for private, non-profit, historical research and education purposes only. It must not be redistributed or republished in any commercial context.

The Times-Picayune, New Orleans, 25 February 2011

St. Augustine High School alumni support paddling students

By Andrew VanacoreThe Times-Picayune

One by one, alumni of St. Augustine High School in the 7th
Ward took the microphone near half-court in the school's packed
gymnasium Thursday night. They had graduated as long ago as the
1960s and as recently as just a few years. But almost to a man
they recalled one paddling at the hands of a St. Augustine
teacher that turned them around, taught them a lesson, finally
pushed them from a B to an A.

Chris Granger, The Times-PicayuneSt. Augustine High School alumni aimed their impassioned
defense of corporal punishment -- or corporal 'correction,' as
many of them suggested it be called -- at New Orleans Archbishop
Gregory Aymond, center, and other clergymen.

These recollections come up as the fate of a 60-year-old
tradition of corporal punishment at St. Augustine faces a
potential end.

Alumni aimed their impassioned defense of corporal punishment
-- or corporal "correction," as many of them suggested
it be called -- at New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond and
other church officials seated under the basketball hoop. The
archbishop's concern about the policy prompted the school's board
of trustees, made up of priests from the Josephite order that
founded the school, to suspend paddling this school year for the
first time in St. Augustine's history.

In doing so they overruled objections from the local board of
directors that runs daily operations at St. Augustine, a
historically black, all-boys school that has furnished
generations of New Orleans political and business leaders.

After a nearly four-hour meeting Thursday night, little had
been resolved.

Aymond told reporters he had listed carefully to the concerns
voiced by a crowd, but reiterated his concern about injuries
reported by parents, and his own unease with overseeing the only
Catholic school in the country that still paddles.

New Orleans public schools have largely done away with
paddling as well. Yet there are plenty of people who still argue
that the paddle had an undeniable role in lending St. Augustine
the high reputation it has today. It was the paddle, they say,
that kept students in line and helped make future leaders of
them.

"It worked on us," said 1961 graduate Lambert
Boissiere Jr., a former state senator and city councilman, one of
a long list of notable alumni that also includes former New
Orleans Mayor Sidney Barthelemy and New York Times Washington
Bureau Chief Dean Baquet.

"After one or two times with the paddle, you wouldn't cut
up any more," Boissiere said. "Some of those priests
could swing."

Still, the use of corporal punishment is unusual in New
Orleans, if not the rest of Louisiana. The state-run Recovery
School District, which includes nearly 70 public schools in New
Orleans, adheres to a student code of conduct that bars corporal
punishment.

It's more commonly tolerated in the rest of the state.
Louisiana law leaves it up to individual school districts to
decide whether or not to allow corporal punishment. And at last
count, 56 out of 70 school districts still gave it the OK,
according to Barry Landry, press secretary for the state
Department of Education.

Click to enlarge

Nationally, the practice is rare. Just 12 percent of schools
in the U.S. allowed corporal punishment and only 9 percent
actually used it during the 2007-08 school year, according to the
National Center for Education Statistics, the most recent year
for which data are available.

Even so, taking the paddle out of St. Augustine would put a
long tradition to rest.

Josephite priests, with the support of the Archdiocese of New
Orleans, opened St. Augustine in 1951 and established the school
as the premier school for black students at a time when Catholic
high schools in the city were still segregated. The priests who
ran the school instilled their students with self-respect --
addressing each of them as "mister" -- and firm discipline.

"The paddling was to teach you that there are
consequences to actions," said Warren Johnson, a doctor and
alumnus who attended Thursday's meeting. "You carry that
through the rest of your life."

In one case remembered by Judge Kern Reese as "The St.
Eubaldus Day Massacre of 1969," physics teacher Armand
Bertrand lined up nearly a whole class of students who had failed
an exam and paddled all of them. As Reese recalled in an
interview with The Times-Picayune in 1989, another teacher leaned
out of a door to ask what was going on.

Two different local TV reports from 24/25 February 2011 about the mass meeting described above -- one from WWL-TV and the other, rather longer, from Fox 8, both in New Orleans. Includes interviews with parents and alumni. Film cameras were not allowed into the meeting itself. The Fox clip includes a comment from the archbishop, and also some irrelevant footage of parental CP and pictures of a strap, which is a bit silly because this news story is very specifically about the paddle.

HERE IS THE FIRST CLIP:

IMPORTANT: Copyright in this video material rests with the original copyright holders. This brief excerpt is reproduced under the "fair use" doctrine for private, non-profit, historical research and education purposes only. It must not be redistributed or republished in any commercial context.

HERE IS THE SECOND CLIP:

IMPORTANT: Copyright in this video material rests with the original copyright holders. This brief excerpt is reproduced under the "fair use" doctrine for private, non-profit, historical research and education purposes only. It must not be redistributed or republished in any commercial context.